RECAP :
After a phone call from Lt. Disher, Monk and Sharona find him in Captain Stottlemeyers office, drinking Scotch to console himself because his 58-year-old mother has married a 37-year-old antique dealer hes sure is up to no good. The con man, Dalton Padron, has taken his aging bride to a marriage counseling clinic for their honeymoon, and Sharona persuades Monk that the best way to catch him is to pose as husband and wife and join him at the clinic. In a group therapy session, Sharona accuses Padron of winking at her and, in the scuffle that follows, snatches an old letter from his jacket pocket. The letter confirms their suspicions: Padron is after the gold that was stashed away 150 years earlier by the crazy old prospector who once owned the house. Padron later grabs the letter and burns it, but not before Monk and Sharona discover that the secret is somewhere in the hundreds of journals that the old man wrote before he died. Early the next morning, Sharona follows Padron into an old gold mine on the property, and Monk, given a choice between keeping company with a coyote or entering the mine, reluctantly joins her. Padron overhears them and sneaks outside, loosening a beam to start a cave-in and trap them in the mine. Meanwhile, Disher discovers the body of Padrons business partner hidden in an armoire. As Disher alerts the local sheriff and rushes to rescue his mother, Monk figures out where the gold is hidden and confronts the culprit, only to be herded into a closet with Sharona, Dishers mother, the counselor, the sheriff, and a genuine married couple. This claustrophobic experience caps a lousy weekend for "Mr. and Mrs. Monk," who emerge from the clinic convinced that theyll never really be married.
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